Their members formed a petty local aristocracy,somewhat like the knights of early feudal Europe, for they too were mounted,armored warriors. Organized to protect their own interests, the local groups were in essencevigilante bands of warriors. Thus, many of the groups came to be led by cadet branches of theimperial family that had received the family names Taira or Minamoto andhad moved out to the provinces to make their fortunes as the representativesof central authority.
Because of the strong Japanesesense of hereditary authority, nothing was more prestigious than imperialdescent. At first suchgroups consisted of relatives or neighbors, centered frequently aroundsome charismatic figure who inspired loyalty. These groups were made up of the officers of the old provincialadministrations and the local managers or owners of estates. In bothcases, these two elements worked on each other over a long period in relativeisolation, and out of the amalgam emerged a complex political system basedon bonds of personal loyalty in a military aristocracy and the fusion ofpublic authority and personal property rights to land.Īs the authority and power of the central government declined in Japan,various groups of local leaders in the provinces banded together for mutualprotection. In Japan, the tribal islanders adoptedthe political institutions and land system of the Chinese Empire. The parallelsare more likely to have been the result of similarities in the social andcultural ingredients that became mixed together in these two areasÑnamely,tribal societies and relatively advanced political and economic systems.In the West, tribal German groups fell heir to the wreckage of the administrationand land system of the Roman Empire. These similarities to Europe cannot be laidto mutual influences, since there was no contact between the two. This was the development of a feudal system,which over the next seven centuries was to go through phases that had manystriking parallels to the feudal experience of Western Europe between theninth and fifteenth centuries. Belknap Harvard.īy the twelfth century Japan was on the threshold of an even greaterdeparture from East Asian norms.
0 kommentar(er)
